Hangman's Noose
by Judithan
Summary: They don't prepare you for things like this. AU. One shot. Roxion. Character death.


Hangman's Noose

Summary: They don't prepare you for things like this. AU. One shot. Roxion.

Note: It has been 5ever since I've written anything for Kingdom Hearts. If I'm a little rusty, I apologize in advance. Also, I don't own KH.

(x)

I was ten when I first encountered death. It was my step-sister's grandfather, and she was devastated, since she was especially close to the old gent. I never met him –correction: I met him when I was five, but I still can't recall it- and I had no idea what she was going on about. She would go on for days screaming about the 'pain in her heart' and how 'nobody understood her', but I thought that it just came with the territory when you were fifteen. I didn't understand death. In all honesty, I still don't understand it, but I feel like I have a better grasp of what it was than what I did back then.

Back then, I was naïve, innocent, unknowing.

Fast-forward two years, and my grandmother died. I didn't really like her; she smelled funny and all I could ever remember her saying to me was 'pull up your pants' and 'my, how you've grown'. Even now, I don't feel remorse over her end. She was old. It was inevitable. Does it make me a bad person that I didn't cry? I don't think so, but I still don't know.

Death seemed like a natural thing, especially when it came to older individuals. I hated her funeral, too, since my mother wouldn't stop her sobbing, and my step-father kept telling me to stop slouching, since it was 'rude'. What was rude was me being there; it's inappropriate to attend a funeral if you feel no remorse, isn't it? At least, I think it is.

Fast-forward another year, and all anyone ever talked about was death, suicide, bleeding, cutting, all that. All anyone wanted to do was escape from their lives. I was content. Did this make me weird? Did being content with my life, my home, my parents, my siblings, make me the odd-one-out? I never would have thought that being happy would ever make me the ugly duckling, especially in eighth grade, of all places. My best friend, at that time, Zexion, told me that he envied me and my life. I didn't understand what was so glamorous.

He told me that "the simple fact that you can stare at your reality, accept it, and live with it, is amazing". I understand now that it was because I wasn't an emotional coward that he adored me. In all honesty, everyday, I just wanted to go home, return to the fort I had made out of blankets and hung up with old, busted nails sticking out of my walls that I've had stuck in there for nearly three years and read comic books.

Zexion was one of my only friends that year, because Hayner decided that I was too 'scene' to be associated with, Pence had been transferred to another school, and Olette's high-school boyfriend thought that I was 'trying to pull the moves on her'. It may have seemed like a horribly lonely time in my life, but it really wasn't. Zexion was easy to talk to, and in return, I feel I was a good listener to his problems; abusive father, apathetic mother. He lived at my place for the most part.

And it may seem like I digress, but this is all part of the 'process' of opening up, right? You give a little, you take a little, you expose your heart, let Caesars subjects stab it, and then you retell it, reopen the wounds, stitch it up, tear it open, and if you haven't lost will at this point, you begin to finally heal. It's a viscous, violent process, and it hurts; it hurts so much. But it's a process.

The next year, when we were freshmen, I was reunited with Pence. He lost a striking amount of weight, since the last time I had seen him over winter break of eighth grade, and he was the same loveable oaf he always had been. Olette broke up with her boyfriend –cheating bastard, I actually gave him a broken nose- and Hayner decided to 'fuck the social norms' and returned to our circle. Zexion was comfortable with the group, and with our daily hangout place under the train-station, we really became the best-friends people began to know us for being.

At one point, Hayner had made some snide comment, calling our hangout a 'gentleman's group', not a club, a group, and Olette made some sassy comment about being a lady, which made Hayner make some rude comment calling Zexion a woman, and everything escalated, and Zexion ran out, sobbing.

I called him later that night, apologized to him, and he said it was alright, just that his father would always call him that when he beat him.

His father had been shot two months prior, by his mother. Judge and Jury ruled it as self-defense, and were actually tempted to give her a medal, since he had killed a woman from Hollow Bastion. A nice woman, too. He really was a crook, when it came down to it. His father was my third encounter with death.

Zexion cried. I listened. He said he wanted to take a break from the group. I listened. He said he wanted to be a girl sometimes, so that maybe people wouldn't torment him about being androgynous. I listened. He said he wanted to die, because the jokes and bruises were too much. I told him that anytime he wanted to die, all he had to do was text a '911+' to me, from any phone, anywhere, and I would find him, and save him. He said he could do that. We mutually hung up, and I saw him the next day.

He hugged me dearly the next day, and I felt as though he were just a ghost. It scared me, and even when Hayner made some comment about us 'getting a room', all I could do was stick up the middle finger and continue hugging my best bro.

A month later, I got a text. It said '911+' and I immediately ran over to Zexion's house. It took twelve minutes to get there, and the whole time I was scared shitless that I would be too late.

I was just in time. I hugged him, so close. Tears were staining his face, and all he could say was "I want to end it all", and all I could say was "Don't you dare leave me, you asshole". In retrospect, it wasn't my finest moment, but I felt like it had done the trick. After all, what better way to show concern for your best friend than to make them feel bad?

In that moment, however, something changed. The dynamics of our relationship immediately took a 180 turn and almost hit the railing. His lips were on mine, and while I know I had never been thoroughly attracted to anyone in particular, be it male or female, it felt _extremely_ strange. Not bad strange, nor was it good strange. Just, peculiar.

Abashed, he apologized, calling himself gross and a faggot, and all I could do to reassure him that I didn't hate him was to kiss him again. I didn't _want_ to lead him on, but at that point in my life, I was at a stand-still in my sexuality, and if I wasn't getting any attention from the girls, girly guys would suffice.

"Any time you need me, I'll be there to catch you." He trusted me. I trusted him.

During this year, the levels of the emo-meter seemed to drop drastically, in comparison to the previous, and as the MCR and Evanescence rage seemed to simmer down a bit, normalcy returned.

Half a semester went by, and Zexion and I became a couple. I wasn't 'deeply in love' with him, but I did love him dearly. He was my best friend, and if it meant that he was happy, I was happy to provide the love he longed for. I didn't use him for sex, and I didn't use him for status, or as leverage against my parents. If anything, all my mother had said was 'oh, really? Well if the boy wasn't such a stud, and if I didn't love him so much already, I might have had a tiff.' My step-father gave me an uncomfortable look every time I walked into the room for almost a month. In the end, his only concern was that I might end up like one of the 'stereotypes' associated with the homosexual teenager. I assured him that I was bisexual, and I had no intention of painting my nails, or making my voice tacky.

Normalcy prevailed for the rest of our first semester, and at the midway of our sophomore year, I received another terrifying '911+' text from an unknown number, with an address attached. It was a ways away, and I had to sprint to get there.

When I arrived, I came to find Zexion on a parkbench, shoes missing, socks dirty.

His mother had just been attacked in their house while they were being robbed, and while he didn't want to die, he needed me. I hugged him so tight that I smelled like him for days. He called the cops, they were at the scene, and he just needed to get some air. The next day, we learned that his mother would need physical therapy to recover the use of her arm – the robber had dislocated it in such a way that tore muscle.

Fortunately, though, she would live. Zexion would live. The robber would go to jail, and normalcy would return within the next month.

Then everything that I thought could never happen happened.

I got grounded, for failing Chemistry.

My mother thought that the worst punishment was to take my phone away. An hour too late, she told me I got a text from Zexion saying '911+'. My heart swelled into my throat. My eyes burned with tears. I ran as fast as I possibly could. I found his body, only barely hanging on. The hangman's noose frayed from where I had cut it. Luckily for me, he had only barely tipped the chair when I had burst into his room.

The ambulances had arrived within minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

The whole night, nurses kept coming in to check on him, make sure he was still stable. His mother was a sweetheart, and let me sit with her in his room. He wasn't in terrible condition; according to the doctors, his neck hadn't broken, and since his oxygen was only cut off for mere moments –such as with swimming- all he'd have when he woke up was a headache and a lot of explaining to do.

The doctor was kind and sympathetic to my relationship, and didn't kick me out when the nurse said 'only family'.

I didn't sleep a wink, and I just stared at his face and silently sobbed. I almost failed him. I did catch him, but I almost didn't.

In the middle of the night –well, not exactly middle, since it was three in the morning- he woke up, and saw my face. Without any words being said, he began to cry, and I crawled up into the bed with him, held him close, and stroked his hair gently.

He broke the silence. "How… how am I still here?"

"I saved you. I said I would, and I did. How could you ever think that your life wasn't worth it?"

"Because it's not."

"Don't say that, Zexion. Don't fucking say that. I love you so much, please don't leave me." At that point, I didn't exactly 'realize' that I loved him, but more so just accepted, admitted, and announced that I did. It was a quite moving moment. He cried, I cried, and he nestled his head in my shirt.

"Roxas?"

"Yes?"

"I'll keep that promise if you promise me that you'll always be there to catch me."

"Physics and logic says I can't always be there, but I'll be damned if I don't try my fucking best."

Eight years later, and he's my sixth encounter with death. It's alright, though. It's alright. It's alright. It's –

It's just an open wound. It's just a gaping wound that won't seem to close, and even with these therapy sessions I've been going to, it still hard to look at our child. We were married. Our child's name is Ienzo. He's one year old now, and I'm afraid to tell him what happened to his other daddy and the hangman's noose.

(x)

ALL THE FEELS.

Review or not, I don't really mind. The hotter the flame, the better.


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